Clashes remain on school reform

Apr. 29, 2013
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Democrats and Republicans in the Iowa Legislature remain divided over session-defining education reform, but leaders say they’re making incremental progress and steadily shrinking areas of disagreement.

The wide-ranging reform is a top priority for Gov. Terry Branstad and versions of it have passed both the Democrat-controlled Senate and Republican-led House.

But the two chambers are at odds on the package’s centerpiece — a new “career pathways” framework in which teachers would receive higher pay for taking on mentorship and leadership responsibilities — as well as plans to link teacher evaluations to student performance and loosen home-school regulations.

Republicans last week offered what they described as a compromise plan aimed at breaking the education reform stalemate, and Democrats countered Monday with a proposal of their own.

Which issue represents the biggest obstacle to passing the legislation depends on whom you ask.

“There is no one issue that’s necessarily holding this process up,” said Melissa Peterson, a lobbyist for the Iowa State Education Association. “I think it’s a host of issues.”

In his weekly news conference Monday morning, Branstad identified the teacher evaluations as the primary source of disagreement.

Such “accountability measures” that incorporate student achievement into teachers’ evaluations are a must-have for Republicans, while Democrats have signaled opposition.

“Accountability has to be part of this,” said Branstad, a Republican. “If we’re going to get additional money, it also has to include accountability. It’s time to act on that.”

Branstad pointed to a story in the Des Moines Sunday Register showing that Iowa ranks last among 41 states in improving reading scores as evidence of the need for reform.

“The Register had quite an article about this over the weekend,” he said. “Iowa has been dead last in terms of growth in student achievement over the last decade or so. We’ve got to change that and that’s why we need the reforms and the accountability.”

State Rep. Sharon Steckman, D-Mason City and a member of the House-Senate panel negotiating the bill, meanwhile, said it was the home-school language that was holding up progress. The House version of the bill removes certain reporting requirements for home-school students, and allows parents to home-school unrelated children and to teach drivers education.

Democrats are dead set against such changes.

“The governor’s bill is all about reforming public education, and now we’re way off topic,” she said.

If that issue can be resolved, Steckman added, she believed there was common ground to be found on the teacher evaluation issue.

(Peterson, the ISEA lobbyist, however, expressed more skepticism over the evaluation proposal, questioning whether it was necessary or would improve teacher performance. The teachers’ organization is a powerful lobbying force in the Capitol, and generally aligns with Democrats.)

House Education Committee chairman Ron Jorgensen, R-Sioux City, said Monday that he and his Senate counterpart, Herman Quirmbach, D-Ames, have discussed the career pathways section but hardly talked about the teacher evaluation or home-school measures.

The pair met last Thursday, when Jorgensen outlined a new GOP offer, and Quirmbach replied with a counterproposal Monday afternoon that offered concessions on the career pathways elements of the bill but again made no mention of teacher evaluation or home-school measures.

“This is the result of good faith negotiations,” Quirmbach said in a statement of the counterproposal. “We are moving toward agreement on 17 key issues. These issues focus on increasing student achievement and teacher quality.”

Prior to receiving the Democratic proposal, Jorgensen said he saw the two sides “making progress.” His tone was less optimistic in a statement sent after seeing the offer.

“Despite numerous efforts by House Republicans to find common ground on education reform, Senate Democrats have made little effort to compromise,” he said in the statement. “The Senate Democrats continue to oppose accountability, innovation and parental choice.”

The urgency to get a deal done is rising this week because the state’s increases in school aid for the next two years have been tied to the reform package. That means as long as the bill goes undone, schools will have no idea what level of funding to expect in the 2013-14 and 2014-15 school years.

That’s already led districts to assume the worst and begin sending out “pink slips” to teachers suggesting they won’t have a job when school starts again in the fall. Steckman said Monday she’s already heard of dozens of such warnings issued to teachers in districts from Sioux City to Davenport.

“Schools need to know what their funding is,” she said. “If we don’t get the reform done, we’ve got to get that done.”

Jorgensen said he was “pushing hard” to broker a deal this week.

Branstad also called for a quick resolution.

“It’s time for the Legislature to act and to act now,” the governor said. “The conference committee needs to approve an education bill and send it to me for a signature. It’s long overdue.”